Grit

by Gillian French

  She watches me go, hugging one thin arm. “No promises.”

  I buy more food at the snack counter than I really want and get back into the cab with Jesse, turning it all over in my mind. On-screen, all the people in this wicked uptight town called Peyton Place are having a picnic with three-legged races and pie-eating contests and stuff. I hold out a package of Twizzlers to Jesse. When he doesn’t take any, I bite into one, letting his gaze burn on me until I can’t stand it anymore.

  When he kisses me tonight, it’s like he can’t get enough, or like he thinks he won’t get another chance. He presses me back against the door, and we slide down together; the popcorn spills into the darkness under the seat. His hands move up under my shirt, over my stomach and bra and around to the clasp, which I know he won’t be able to open because no guy ever can, so I help him.

  I lie there for a couple seconds with my eyes closed before I realize that he’s pulled away. When I look, he’s facing the wheel again, shoving his hair back with one hand. I prop myself up on my elbow. “What now?”

  “I shouldn’t—” He breaks off, shakes his head. “Not supposed to be doing this.”

  “Why?”

  He gives me a look, kind of unbelieving, then shakes his head again. “Tonight wasn’t gonna be like this. I told myself we were really gonna talk and . . .” He swears, looking out the window. “Then I did it again.”

  “Did what? What’s the problem?”

  “What do you think, Darcy?” When I throw my hands up, he says, “I feel like a piece of shit, hooking up with you. But you’re so—” He breaks off again. “Nobody knows about us. Well—Mason. But I didn’t tell anybody else what we been doing.”

  I make a little sound in my throat. A piece of shit. That’s how I make him feel.

  Jesse’s eyes are dark in the half-light. “I never cheated with anybody before. I mean, I’m no saint or anything, not saying that, but I don’t screw around. I always said I never would.”

  I swallow down an acid taste, getting it now, why he’s been running so hot and cold. “You have a girlfriend.”

  “Huh? No. I’m talking about you and Shea.” All I can do is blink. “Come on. He told everybody about the Fourth, how you guys finally did it up at the quarry. Surprised he didn’t put up billboards, telling everybody what a stud he is.”

  This isn’t exactly news, but I still flush all over, not sure if I’m ashamed or just furious. I try to keep my voice level. “What’s that mean?”

  “He’s wanted you forever. He always says—well, he talks about what he’d like to do to you, with you, whatever. Says you like him, too, that you flirt and come on to him all the time.”

  “I do not.” I spit it out, thinking of the Fourth, what I can remember of it: drinking way too much, until I was fighting to keep my head up, and then Shea beside me, smiling with those good white teeth and tawny eyes, being all nice, for some reason. I knew what he was about—how he and some other boys threw rotten crabapples at Rhiannon and me in seventh grade and ruined Rhiannon’s new white hoodie, how he’ll say or do any mean thing to get a laugh—but that seemed pretty fuzzy right then. I can’t say if I flirted back, but if I did, I was mostly joking, even when he started kissing my neck. The first time he asked me to go for a walk with him, I said no; the fourth time, I caved, grateful when he put his arm around me to keep me steady. I didn’t plan to have sex. That’s not why I went out there. “I never led him on, that’s crap.” I’m choking on my words. “I bet Mr. Big-Badass-Stud didn’t tell you that I never even called him after, that I don’t want anything to do with him.” Jesse’s quiet. “Yeah. Didn’t think so.”

  “What about in the barrens? You guys are always going back and forth, giving each other hell.”

  “So?”

  “So I figured that meant you were still hanging out.”

  “You mean hooking up.” I stuff myself back into my bra. “No. We fight all the time because he’s an ass. I told him I’d out-rake him, and his ego can’t handle it.”

  “You can’t win.”

  “God, Jesse. Thanks for having my back.”

  “No, you don’t get it. You can’t beat him.” When I look at him, his head’s down, his fists resting on his thighs. “Duke . . . helps him out every harvest. He messes with Shea’s numbers, gives him credit for more boxes than he actually raked. How do you think Shea affords the payments on that crotch rocket of his?”

  I just stare. Shea’s Ninja, black-and-poison-green, waxed to a shine. I look down at my clenched fists. “How long have you known?” My voice is soft.

  “Since the first week of raking this harvest. He told me and Mason, made us promise to keep our mouths shut.”

  I nod slowly, working my fists, letting my nails bite into my palms. “No wonder all the guys have been laughing at me.”

  “Nobody knows but us, Darcy. Even that was a mistake, I think. He got so caught up in bragging about all the money he’s making that he let it slip.” A weak laugh, like maybe I might join in, like we might still be in this together.

  “The Wardwells got no idea?”

  “Bob trusts Duke. End of harvest, things don’t quite match up, they blame it on miscounting, scales being off, whatever. All part of the business. Duke never takes enough off the top to get anybody worried. I guess he thinks he’s helping out his nephew.”

  I breathe out through my nose. “And you’re okay with this?” My voice is almost a whisper.

  Jesse shrugs. “No. But what am I gonna do, tell on them? Duke’s got kids and bills and everything, and he’s on layoff most of the winter. He needs what he makes harvesting. Mason and me aren’t gonna be the reason he gets fired. And Shea”—he looks over, but I won’t meet his eyes—“we been friends since we were twelve. I know he can be a douche. But with you and me . . . I mean, I already thought you were cute and all, and when it seemed like you liked me . . .” He gives up on catching my gaze and looks out at the night, his voice flat. “But Shea, he’s in love with you.”

  I laugh harshly, startling him. “Oh, yeah. He loves me.” Me, kissing Shea in the dark, running my nails over his back, laughing a little and not taking it seriously. “That’s gotta be it.” Things moving faster, too fast, us on the ground and him reaching under my skirt and tugging down my underwear, pushing my legs up before I can stop him. “That’s how come he calls me a slut, and trash. That’s how come he treats me so good.” I can feel Jesse’s surprise and I can’t stand it, won’t wait for him to ask questions. I won’t answer his damned questions. “Take me home.”

  He begins to say something, then swallows his words and starts the engine. I face the window rigidly the whole way, watching woods and lit houses stream by without really seeing them. Shea, loving me. Jesse, not loving me at all.

  When we reach my house, he leans over, saying, “Don’t go yet,” like it’s still not too late, like we can save this.

  I shrug him off. “No. I thought you were . . .” Somebody different. I shove the door open. “I’m done.”

  I cross the yard, breaking into a run, getting one clear image of Nell’s cards scattered all over the table by the wind before I’m through the door, with the sound of his engine roaring away in my ears.

  Upstairs, I fall asleep in my clothes, my mind raging, headphones on, and the stuffed dog I’m too old for squished under one arm. Nobody comes to check on me, and I’m glad.

  Around one a.m., I thrash awake, sure that the car is out there again, positive that if I’d opened my eyes a second sooner, I would’ve seen the headlights track across my wall. I go to the window, but when I part the curtains, there’s nothing out there but the night.

  EIGHTTEEN

  RHIANNON’S WAITING FOR me at the kitchen table the next morning. I sink into a chair, puffy-eyed from a bad night of sleep, and see her splashed all over the front page of the American again.

  A Year Without Rhiannon. That’s the headline, with a smaller one underneath: Twelve Months After Her Daughter’s Disappearance, Sa
sanoa Mother Seeks Answers. There’s a big photo of Rhiannon’s mom staring off down Route 15 with the barrens behind her, the snow fence unraveling to the left. Charlie Ann looks older, and I think she might be getting her hair dyed at Great Lengths now, because it’s a brassier shade of auburn than I remember. So it’s almost the anniversary. Crazy to think that this time last year, I was picking up the phone and hearing Charlie Ann’s voice. Did Rhiannon stay over? Was there a party?

  The next photo is of Rhiannon, a candid of her lying on her stomach across her bed with her fuzzy slippers on, her gaze tilted up, chin propped on her hands. The last photo is of the Fit being towed out of the woods.

  “You should read it,” Mags says, sitting next to me with a bowl of cereal. “It’s a pretty good article.” She doesn’t say anything about seeing a car parked on our road again last night, so either she slept through it or I dreamed that flash of headlights across my wall. I shrug, don’t say anything.

  Mom finishes wiping down the counter and sits by me. “You got in early last night.”

  I look up. She almost never says anything about when I come and go, as long as I don’t show up wasted. While I watch, something unspoken passes between her and Mags. For the first time ever, I get the feeling they’ve been talking about me.

  Mom coughs and crinkles the cellophane on a fresh pack of Kools, keeping her eyes on what she’s doing. “Everything good?”

  I bite my lip for a second. “Yup. It’s all good.”

  When I woke up this morning, I thought hard about not going to work. The harvest is almost over. The barrens should be cleared by Saturday at the latest, and Bob will probably send most of us home before then because he won’t need as many hands. I’d lose only a couple days’ pay. It might be worth it to dodge Jesse, Shea, the whole stupid mess.

  But that’d be chickenshit, and I know it. Shea’s cheating all of us, every single person who busts their back in the heat while he does the same work for extra pay. If Jesse’s too gutless to do something, then I guess it’s on me. So, I put on my cutoffs, tank top, and cowgirl hat, lay the SPF 50 on thick, and get ready to survive this day.

  Nell comes knocking, and on our way out the door, we grab our bags of donations for the migrants who lost their stuff in the fire. I’m surprised to step into the first hint of fall crispness in the air. It’ll be seventy-five by noon, but right now, I’ve got goose bumps on my legs.

  I brought the front page of the American with me. Wait till Libby shows up and sees that somebody messed with her morning ritual of coffee, toast, and paper. I read the Rhiannon article on the ride in, Nell reading over my shoulder. The reporter gives the facts of Rhiannon’s disappearance, then talks about Charlie Ann’s “quiet resolve and determination”: “Somebody out there knows the truth. It’s been a year. Maybe this story will help them find the courage to come forward and bring Rhiannon home.”

  It mentions Rhiannon’s dad only once, which isn’t surprising, since Jim and Charlie Ann divorced when Rhiannon was nine and have that awkward on again, off again thing going on. Once he even moved back in with them for a whole year, until the day Rhiannon came home from school to find him gone and her mom mopping the kitchen floor with a vengeance, saying that he wouldn’t be coming back and to stop asking about it. I remember Rhiannon called me, crying so hard she could barely talk.

  “Wow. Look,” Nell says, and I glance up to see a big new poster stapled to the telephone pole in front of Gaudreau’s. It’s printed on white poster board with Rhiannon’s sophomore-year photo, a full-color five-by-seven, dead center. Missing—$5,000 Reward for Information.

  It’s a parade of Rhiannons all the way down Main Street, her face smiling out of every business, bulletin board, and telephone pole. We even pass the people hanging them up, some guy stapling a poster in front of the post office while a woman waits in the car. I think I catch a glimpse of auburn hair, but I’m not sure.

  We’re called up to headquarters before work begins for the day, sitting in clusters on the grass, knowing something big is brewing. This time, Mrs. Wardwell stays in her chair, watching her husband with a tired but not-too-mean I give up kind of look. Bob stands with his fists on his hips, working his mouth around his dentures like the words he’s mulling over have a bad taste.

  “I got something to say, and then I ain’t gonna bring it up again. But I never thought I’d see you people—some of you I known for years—walk away from folks needing help. That’s not what small-town livin’s supposed to be about.”

  I notice Jesse looking at me. He sits beside Mason with his forearms resting on his bent knees, looking up at me slantwise from under his hair, which has gotten shaggy this summer, and shot through with reddish sun streaks. He doesn’t look like himself without a grin. I can see how badly he wants to say something to me. It hurts to see him hurt, no matter how mad I am at him. I turn away. I didn’t make him lie, didn’t make him set me up as a fool, or be so totally blind to what’s really between me and Shea.

  “Now, you know who you are, so I ain’t gonna go namin’ names, but the ones I seen drivin’ off down the road while we were putting that fire out . . .” Bob jerks his chin. “Well, there ain’t gonna be work here for you next year. If the woods had caught, or one of them little kids had been inside—” He steps back, shaking his head. “Just don’t be coming around looking for work.” He claps his hands together once. “Get to it.”

  You can feel the shock, people looking at each other, whispering, maybe the migrants most shocked of all. The faces of the locals who left yesterday are like hard masks as we get up and spread out across the rows. A couple of them leave, just plain leave, without a word to the Wardwells or anybody else. I watch Shea brush off his jeans, giving him time to feel me looking and meet my eyes. He grins. This time, though, he must sense that something’s changed, because he doesn’t give me any crap as I follow Mags and Nell into the barrens.

  But he follows me. And sets up two rows over.

  I rake hard because I want money. I rake hard because that’s how I like to work. I’m not killing myself anymore to try to beat Shea in a rigged game.

  His presence beside me is like heat, like weight, something I’ve carried around on my back too long. Can’t believe how he’s steered my time and energy toward him this August, feeding his lame love/hate thing, while all I could think about was proving how tough I was. I fill a box and close the top, letting my gaze meet his, staying cool as I can, not giving him a reaction.

  He pushes his hat back and wipes his brow. “Looking rode hard and put away wet, Princess. Rough night?”

  “You’d love to know.”

  “Nah. I’m not into sloppy seconds.”

  “From what I hear, you’ll take whatever you can get.” I drop an empty box on top of my stack with a bang. “And I hear you take handouts pretty regular.”

  “What, you mean like the handout you gave me at the quarry? I do okay. You worried about me?”

  “No. But you should be.”

  I let him think on that one. When I glance at him next, his cockiness has faded into watchfulness. He gets back to work, but he’s moving slower, sizing me up.

  At lunch break, I wait until Mrs. Wardwell makes her usual mosey over to the Porta-Johns before grabbing the bags of donations from Mags’s car. I carry them up to the camper and set them inside the open doorway—the Wardwells will figure out who they’re for—mostly because I don’t want us to look like kiss-asses in front of the locals who were basically told not to show their faces here next harvest.

  I go back down the steps. Everybody’s eating lunch in the grass below. I see Nell’s blue bandanna, the sun shining gold off Mags’s hair. Then somebody grabs my arm hard enough to make me gasp, pulling me into the shadows behind the camper.

  Shea presses me back against the cool metal, leaning down to get in my face. “Who’ve you been talking to?”

  I push on his arms. “Let go, idiot.”

  “Not till you tell me what the hell you were h
inting at back there.”

  “What do you think?” Our noses are almost touching. “I know you’re cheating. We’re all busting our asses while you pull in double—” I jerk against him, then go flat against the camper, breathing hard. “Tell Duke to stop, and I won’t say anything to anybody.”

  “You think we’re dealing? You want to, like, shake on it or something?”

  “Fine. Then I’ll tell everybody. Hope you like washing dishes at the Harbor View diner next summer—”

  This time he slams me back so hard that the aluminum ripples. I curse, lunging at him until he grabs my wrists and pins them. I’m strong, too, and I don’t make it easy for him. “You’re not telling anybody.” He’s breathing hard on me. “You just love screwing me over, don’t you? You been after me all summer, giving me shit.”

  “You got that backward.”

  “Bouchard told you, right? He’s the one.” I fix my gaze on sunlight caught in a spiderweb. He swears. “Knew it. He can’t keep his mouth shut. Just like he can’t keep it in his pants when some little hoochie like you shakes her ass at him. I don’t even blame the guy.” He turns my chin back. “That’s the plan? You’re gonna spread for all my friends before you work your way back to me?”

  “I’m never gonna touch you again. And just so you know, I liked Jesse way before I ever hooked up with you. But I never liked you.” Using all my strength, I twist my wrists free and push past him. “Stay away from me.”

  A few seconds later, he says, “Hey, Darcy,” and when I glance back, he catches my upper arm and pulls. I stumble. He sweeps my left foot out from under me. I go down.

  I don’t remember seeing the trailer hitch, but I guess I must’ve, because I almost get my hands up before I hit it. My forehead and nose slam metal. My teeth clamp down on my tongue.

  I see fireworks, smell blood, taste blood, and gag as I roll onto my side.

  Cradling my face, I ride the wave of pain until it drops me, and I can breathe again. Sitting up, I wipe away tears—I’m not crying, it just hurts—and see a watery image of Shea walking away across the field. He didn’t even stick around to see how messed up I am; going by the warm wetness on my face and the way my head is throbbing, I’m guessing very.